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Dangerous stuff you do at work

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Originally posted by: CrackRabbit
100% Isopropyl and Ethyl Alcohol.
I had the fun job of pouring 5 gal drums into smaller containers for use in a machine shop. You never want to get a full nose of either one, burns like hell.
My dad works with cryogenic (liquid) gasses doing leak tests on vacuum chambers. Usually Nitrogen and Helium. He let me play with some Liquid Nitrogen once, nifty stuff.

The other would be handling money. You never realize exactly how dirty those bills in your pocket are until your fingertips are gray from handling them all day.
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Oh yeah.... get those masks on. I love it when we have to unpipe some of our ammonia hydroxide pumps. That's fun. My tech turned the beaker the wrong way and I was gagging....
 
current job, nothing, just sit in a cubicle with a computer

when i was in the Navy, just nuclear reactor and high pressure steam plant, steam turbines, electrical generators etc, power plant on a submarine
 
I had a canister of what we were calling 'death powder' in my cube. It was all sealed up but its nasty stuff. It's a ridiculously fine powder, so small that if you breath it it will travel all the way down into the alveoli in your lungs (the little air sacs). It will get into there and because it's sharp it will open thousands of tiny cuts in your lungs. Your body can't break down these little shards in your lungs and there is no way to get them out. Over the next few months you'll slowly drown in your own blood as the sharp bits of powder keep on opening new cuts.

Fun stuff!
 
Originally posted by: Bignate603
I had a canister of what we were calling 'death powder' in my cube. It was all sealed up but its nasty stuff. It's a ridiculously fine powder, so small that if you breath it it will travel all the way down into the alveoli in your lungs (the little air sacs). It will get into there and because it's sharp it will open thousands of tiny cuts in your lungs. Your body can't break down these little shards in your lungs and there is no way to get them out. Over the next few months you'll slowly drown in your own blood as the sharp bits of powder keep on opening new cuts.

Fun stuff!
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What in the hell kind of diabolical shit is that? :Q
 
Past job, driving a big rig OTR, worse moment was watching another truck driver die in a head on with another truck in Ohio in 2005, I was lucky enough to miss getting directly hit by about 10 feet. One minute talking with the driver headed south like me, next minute he was dead, nothing left of his truck but the frame and tires, and half the reefer was gone. The north bound driver had a heart attack and crossed the median on I-71 at the top of a hill and came down our side with the hammer down and plowed through the truck. It's really woke me up to how dangerous of a job it is, and scared the crap out of me when other drivers we had passed minutes before started asking if I had died in the crash also.
 
My first real job was pumping gas. Our hands would reek of gasoline. Our clothes too. Back them everyone loved the smell of gasoline. We never even gave it a thought that it might be bad for us.

I did countless brake jobs in the old days when brake shoes and pads had asbestos in them. This was before it was common knowledge that asbestos was a carcinogen. It was typical to take an air hose and blow the dust off before starting work.

I spent many hours with my hands, wrists and even arms in solvent tanks washing parts. Your hands would tingle afterwards for hours. I also sprayed large components with caustic chemicals and hosed them off afterwards.

Oil changes up the ying-yang. Used motor oil is a known carcinogen. We didn't know or care then.

I used countless chemicals in an industrial environment. The worst was trichloroethane. The drums were re-labeled with a trade name. It was suggested we use gloves, but few of us did. The gloves we were provided leaked anyway. We'd have our hands in it for hours. We'd sometimes have to use it while working over our head with our arms up. It would run down our arms, through our armpits and down to the waistband of our pants. One day we came in to work and it had disappeared and nobody knew why. Someone did .... but they weren't talking about it. We didn't find out until long afterwards what we were using and the dangers associated with it.

In machining operations we were exposed to industrial coolants. The stuff would spray out at high pressures to cool the tooling and the workpiece and it was impossible to contain. It would create a mist in the air and the most hazardous exposure was breathing it. It was outlawed shortly after I hired in and my exposure was minimal.

As part of my tenure, I worked in an enormous stamping facility. Enormous presses capable of created thousands of tons of stamping force. The oil mist from those presses hung in the air and made the place look like it was in a continual fog. You knew you were breathing something you shouldn't be breathing. One day I happened to realize that all the oil mist had disappeared. I asked a co-worker what was up and found out that the oil mist was still there, they had just found a type of oil that made the mist appear invisible. I thought all the oil leaks had been fixed, no ... just a different lubricant. Nice.

We came in to work one day to find that all the drinking fountains had the water turned off and wrapped in caution tape. That took days of raising hell to find out what was going on. Come to find out they had tapped into water they used to cool tooling instead of city water. We were pretty certain that not all drinking fountains were affected, but whether we had been drinking that water for days or decades we never found out. They brought in bottled water as a fix.

I worked in close proximity with welders. Holding pieces together to be tacked and whatever. Late in my working life it was decided that welders really needed to be wearing filtration equipment. I feel sorry for those guys. My exposure was minimal.

This is the stuff I can remember without putting a lot of thought to it. We made great money. We had great benefits. Many, many, many died young. Lots of cancer, respiratory diseases, skin conditions, unusual illnesses and the like. The smarter among us (IMO) retired young. As soon as possible. The decked is stacked against us. Some of us would like to enjoy as much of life as we can before we meet our early demise. Way too many worked until 65 and were dead within months of retiring.



 
Various construction activities. Walking steel specifically was the most dangerous part. The first bunch of years I did it, we didn't wear harnesses, later we had harnesses, but sometimes the setups made it scarier using them. I have a bit of a problem with heights, so I end up getting vertigo. I'm fine if I can hold something with my arms and torso, but walking laterally screws with my head. I'd rather climb a 1000' tower than walk a bridge beam 30' up.
 
Most dangerous work I did was working on the flight deck of a carrier, now days it is walking through the halls during class changes in the middle school I work in.
 
If anybody who has ever worked with me post on this forum, they'd list Sssnail. Danger is my middle name, baby.
 
In no particular order

hydrazine -- rocket fuel, decomposes to N2 and H2 in contact with any metal surface, auto ignites explosively in air, midly shock sensitive

base bath -- sodium hydroxide and hydrogen peroxide mixed as high concentrations+

high concentration acids of all kinds, including HF

H2S -- hydrogen sulfide

WF6 and MoF6 -- very toxic, reactive and corrosive flourine gases

anhydrous ammonia

BF3 gas -- yes boron trifluoride

trimethyl aluminum -- auto ignites in air

Lithium tert-butoxide -- auto ignites in air

all variety of solvents

vacuum pump oil contaminated with one or all of the above


In terms of other hazards:

1) high power, high voltage equipment

2) x-ray equipment

3) some machine shop equipment including welding equipment
 
Originally posted by: Xanis
Originally posted by: Bignate603
I had a canister of what we were calling 'death powder' in my cube. It was all sealed up but its nasty stuff. It's a ridiculously fine powder, so small that if you breath it it will travel all the way down into the alveoli in your lungs (the little air sacs). It will get into there and because it's sharp it will open thousands of tiny cuts in your lungs. Your body can't break down these little shards in your lungs and there is no way to get them out. Over the next few months you'll slowly drown in your own blood as the sharp bits of powder keep on opening new cuts.

Fun stuff!
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What in the hell kind of diabolical shit is that? :Q
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Seriosuly. WHY?!
 
Current job.. not much danger.

I used to work in metal plating place using sulfuric, hydrochloric and nitric acids back when I was 18.. one of my first jobs.. damn I hated it, 12 hour shifts, ruined several pants and shirts on that job and I'll probably eventually get skin cancer.

I also worked at Coors for awhile at their canning plant with some big machines there that could trash you quick.. as long as you paid attention though it was safe.
 
up to a 15 Ci Americium 241 Beryllium Neutron source, Pulse Neutron generators (50 Ci equivalent) , 5 Ci Cesium sources, small calibration sources that are "hand held" Explosive shape charges, arming the shape charge guns with detonators. Chemicals... Everything that comes out of an oil well including H2S. Fracturing chemicals like carbonic acid, Hydrochloric acid, HF, Methanol, polymer gels and cross linkers and breakers.

in my last job we worked with lots of chemicals like polyester resins, methelethelketon peroxide, alumina something or other, and we also created a lot of fine dust when machining and finishing the fiberglass products. we also used acetone like it was water to wash our hand, spray on things, actually had pipes of it in the plant to all the stations like you may have water spigots. I had a cough for months after working that job.
 
Originally posted by: Xanis
Originally posted by: Bignate603
I had a canister of what we were calling 'death powder' in my cube. It was all sealed up but its nasty stuff. It's a ridiculously fine powder, so small that if you breath it it will travel all the way down into the alveoli in your lungs (the little air sacs). It will get into there and because it's sharp it will open thousands of tiny cuts in your lungs. Your body can't break down these little shards in your lungs and there is no way to get them out. Over the next few months you'll slowly drown in your own blood as the sharp bits of powder keep on opening new cuts.

Fun stuff!
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What in the hell kind of diabolical shit is that? :Q
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Diamond dust can do that.
 
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